SWEPT BY TORNADO.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 227, 25 September 1928, Page 10

SWEPT BY TORNADO.

ST. HELIER'S VISITATION.

ROOF BLOWN OFF HOUSE.

RESIDENTS' ALARMING EXPERIENCES

TORRENTIAL RAINSTORM

The front half of the roof of a sixroomed house was ripped off, the side was blown out of a motor garage, outhouses were overturned, a wireless aerial was brought to earth, and trellis-work, flowers and shrubs were flattened by a tornado which cut a path of wreckage through the St. Helicr's Bay district at about 6 o'clock this morning. To the residents of the district the visitation was of a sudden and startling nature, and almost tropical in its severity. "Just like riding over bumpy air," was Mr. O. Montgomery's expression, when asked this morning what his experience had been. "I was in bed at the time, and the house rocked like a plane in a high wind. Every moment I expected the house to be blown from its foundations." Mr. Montgomery's house was on the edge of the track of the tornado, and about two hundred yards distant from the house of Mr. A. Wilson, which suffered the most damage. Mr. Wilson's house is in a depression on the Glendowie estate, and was apparently in the middle of the track. The occupants were greatly alarmed as the house took the full force of the gale and commenced to rock and creak in an ominous manner. The wind drove in through a ventilator in the front gable of the house, and the front half of the iron roof was sent hurtling through the air in the direction of a quarry. Some of the sheet* of iron landed in the open paddocks over three hundred yards away, and pieces of timber from the roof were to be seen sticking fast in the grass over a hundred yards from where they were torn from the roof. A peculiar effect of the wind was that the wash-honse window at the back of the house, which was fastened securely inside, wae torn from it* fastenings and hinge* and blown into the yard. The house* which i» of the bungalow type and contains 'six rooms, is quite new, having been erected only twelve months ago. Torrential rain fell during the blow, and contributed to the damage. To those who were living in the depression on the Glendowie estate the approach of the rainstorm had the appearance of sea epray lashed skywards on a rocky coast. Although it was to be seen for only about five minutes, so rapid was the progress of the tornado, the spectacle was most sensational and one to be long remembered. Onarter-mile Wide. The whole of the suburban area along 1 the eastern waterfront was exposed to the force of the gale which raged during the night, trot the tornado was confined to a strip about a-quarter of a mile wide. It wii within this narrow belt that all the damage was done. From observations this morning the first force was felt on the slope close to the waterfront, behind the public school. In Walmsley Road, as it continues past the Glendowie Store, a number of, outhouses were overturned. Gardens suffered severely, and in one a trellis-work covered in flowering clematis was beaten down. Across the St. Helier's Road, on the summit of the hill, the buildings of Mr. W. H. Andrews, a dairyman, caught the full force of the tornado. A motor garage, open at both ends and attached to a large shed, had one wall torn from its supports, lifted in the air and deposited against the side of a house ten yards away. Mr. Andrews and an assistant, who were working in the shed, were greatly alarmed by the rocking and swaying of the building and by the noise of the tearing away of the garage wall, which was of solid timber measuring fifteen feet by eleven. The aerial of Mr. Andrew's wireless installation. was also broken down by the wind. Aβ an indication of the force of the gale, a quart bottle full of milk which was standing on the floor of a milk van was whisked around a corner and deposited on the ground some distance away. The occurrence was rare for Auckland, and residents in the district say that although the blast lasted only five minutes it Was terrifin in its violence.